British riders Jonathan Rea (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda) and Tom Sykes
(Yamaha World Superbike) revelled in the poor conditions in today's
opening qualifying session at the Nurburgring. Braving the cold, wind
and the rain at the German circuit Rea posted the quickest time of the
day in 2 minutes 11.278 seconds to head the timesheets. The Northern
Ireland youngster was half-a-second ahead of Sykes, who also pirouetted
his YZF machine at one of the slower corners on his first visit to the
circuit. An impressive third place went to Australian Troy Corser, who
made further progress for BMW at the German manufacturer's home race.
Another British rider, youngster Richard Cooper, standing in for the
injured Ruben Xaus, put in an impressive eleventh quickest time on the
second BMW.

Both Ducati Xerox riders were well up in the timesheets. Michel Fabrizio
was in fourth place while Noriyuki Haga shrugged off any residual damage
from his recent injury to take fifth, three-tenths behind his team-mate.
Sterilgarda Ducati's Shane Byrne also came off his 1098 machine during
the session but was able to post the sixth quickest time of the day,
ahead of Leon Haslam (Stiggy Racing Honda), Jakub Smrz (Guandalini
Ducati) and Ryuichi Kiyonari (Ten Kate Honda). Italian Luca Scassa made
up the top 10 with a confident performance in the damp conditions on his
Kawasaki Pedercini ZX10R.

For the moment championship challenger Ben Spies (Yamaha World
Superbike) is down in 13th place as he gets to grips with another
circuit he has never raced on before, one place ahead of Brno winner Max
Biaggi on the first of the Aprilias, the Italian focusing on setting up
the bike for tomorrow's decisive sessions. Suzuki Alstare's stand-in
rider Karl Muggeridge was fifteenth quickest but would surely have
improved had he not crashed out five minutes from the end.

Supersport

Cal Crutchlow (Yamaha World Supersport) and Kenan Sofuoglu (Hannspree
Ten Kate Honda) powered to the first two places in today's single free
practice session. Heavy rain at the start faded by the end, allowing the
Supersport riders to get their times down, but the points leader and his
Turkish rival proved to have an extra gear and Crutchlow went quickest
with a time of 2 minutes 13.170 seconds. The rest were some way behind,
Garry McCoy leading the chasing pack on his ParkinGo Triumph 675, but
almost two seconds off the pace. McCoy grabbed third by just a whisker
from newly-crowned Italian champion Michele Pirro (Yamaha Lorenzini),
while Mark Aitchison (Honda Althea), Joan Lascorz (Kawasaki Provec),
Anthony West (Stiggy Racing Honda) and Andrew Pitt (Hannspree Ten Kate
Honda) made up the next four places. Crutchlow's title rival Eugene
Laverty (Parkalgar Honda) was some way off the pace in ninth place, over
three seconds behind Cal.

Superstock 1000

The rain also conditioned the free practice session for the Superstock
1000 riders, but points leader Xavier (Ducati Xerox) appeared not to
have any problems as he powered to the front with a time of 2 minutes
15.737 seconds The next man, second-placed Javier Fores (Kawasaki
Pedercini) was a full 2.5 seconds down, with Sylvain Barrier (Garnier
Yamaha) in third. Both Simeon's rivals were in difficulty, Claudio Corti
(Suzuki Alstare Brux) stuck in seventh but 6 seconds slower than the
Belgian, with Maxime Berger (Ten Kate Honda) one place further back.

Superstock 600

Marco Bussolotti (Yamaha Trasimeno) was the quickest on the first
day of action in the European Superstock 600 category. The Italian
was three-tenths faster than Britain's Gino Rea (Ten Kate Honda) and
eight-tenths quicker than points leader, team-mate Danilo Petrucci. The
next place went to Belgian Vincent Lonbois (MTM Yamaha), making it four
of the title contenders in the top 4., while the fifth contender, Jeremy
Guarnoni (MRS Yamaha), was in eighth.